ter little Bengal rose-bushes,
to fill in worsted work, or to put on collars. Moreover, if a little
girl in her tenth year has more refinement than a boy of twenty, she
is timid and awkward. She is frightened at a spider, chatters nonsense,
thinks of dress, talks about the fashions and has not the courage to be
either a watchful mother or a chaste wife.

Notice what progress she had made; she has been shown how to paint
roses, and to embroider ties in such a way as to earn eight sous a day.
She has learned the history of France in _Ragois_ and chronology in the
_Tables du Citoyen Chantreau_, and her young imagination has been set
free in the realm of geography; all without any aim, excepting that of
keeping away all that might be dangerous to her heart; but at the same
time her mother and her teachers repeat with unwearied voice the lesson,
that the whole science of a woman lies in knowing how to arrange the fig
leaf which our Mother Eve wore. "She does not hear for fifteen years,"
says Diderot, "anything else but 'my daughter, your fig leaf is on
badly; my daughter, your fig leaf is on well; my daughter, would it not
look better so?'"

Keep your wife then within this fine and noble circle of knowledge.
If by chance your wife wishes to have a library, buy for her Florian,
Malte-Brun, _The Cabinet des Fees_, _The Arabian Nights_, Redoute's
_Roses_, _The Customs of China_, _The Pigeons_, by Madame Knip, the
great work on Egypt, etc. Carry out, in short, the clever suggestion
of that princess who, when she was told of a riot occasioned by the
dearness of bread, said, "Why don't they eat cake?"

Perhaps, one evening, your wife will reproach you for being sullen and
not speaking to her; perhaps she will say that you are ridiculous,
when you have just made a pun; but this is one of the slight annoyances
incident to our system; and, moreover, what does it matter to you that
the education of women in France is the most pleasant of absurdities,
and that your marital obscurantism has brought a doll to your arms? As
you have not sufficient courage to undertake a fairer task, would it not
be better to lead your wife along the beaten track of married life in
safety, than to run the risk of making her scale the steep precipices of
love? She is likely to be a mother: you must not exactly expect to have
Gracchi for sons, but to be really _pater quem nuptiae demonstrant_;
now, in order to aid you in reaching this consummation, we must